US COVID Back on Exponentially Increasing Growth Curve (2023 Update)

With reasonable precautionary measures (masks and social distancing) and no lockdown the UK is presently holding it to 1.3x exponential growth in a national population where 66% of adults are double jabbed and 88% have had the first jab. So far hospitalisation rates are tolerable but...

It is causing trouble now since the high incidence of ~1% Covid in the population is causing too many isolate for 10 days pings on the tracing app. The governments response is to make the app less sensitive!

We are about to do a crazy unlock everything next Monday to see just how high we can push the infection rate up during midsummer. This is utter madness but we have a crazy government led by a complete nutter.

Three day doubling rate was about par for the original Wuhan wild strain that first reached the UK into an unprotected population with no measures in place at all. I expect delta to manage more like 7x if it is allowed to let rip unfettered. We will find out soon enough :(

Don't bet on the vaccine saving you from the delta variant. The hottest place in the UK right now has adults 81% first dose and 64% double dosed. The infection is running through children and young adults but from there going out into the wider community. If exposed to the virus being vaccinated cuts your chances of catching Covid by a factor of three but it doesn't eliminate it entirely.

Feed South Tyneside in here where it says "postcode" to see the graph:

Note that the majority of infections are in the under 60s's (actually under 30's but that split is not shown) but is now spreading into the over 60's with a couple of weeks lag.

The vaccine seems to prevent fatalities by at least an order of magnitude but we will know better after this dangerous experiment. Reckless doesn't begin to describe the actions of our UK "government".

They are now also rising exponentially but with a fortnight lag. People forget that there is a time lag between infection and hospital admission and then again between that and any final outcome.

I expect it varies a lot from state to state but what are the typical US vaccination rates in populous coastal states like California? (and for comparison in a populous red state like say Texas)

Vaccination rates are only part of the story. Different sections of the population (age, political affiliation) exhibit different vaccination rates.

The oldest have the highest vaccination rates -- they, no doubt, learned from (bad!) experience! ~76% of the over 65 crowd are fully vaccinated with 85% having received at least one jab. The percentages drop by about 10% for each ~10 years of decreasing age. The 12-15 year-olds seeing 22% fully and 30% one-shot.

The Blue states have higher overall vaccination rates; the Red states are being fed a steady diet of misinformation (in the hope of killing them off?). For example, New England (largely Blue) has vaccination rates of ~60+% fully and ~70% one-shot.

By contrast, the "red heart" of the country tends to be closer to 35-40 fully and 50% one-shot. Alabama -- known for its great thinkers -- is at 33% & 40%. Another source of rocket scientists -- Mississippi -- has them "beat" at

33% and 37%.

By contrast, California is at 51% & 62%.

A common analogy has been to correlate "blueness" with vaccination adoption rates (and inversely with "redness")

Gonna be a bad Fall. The notion that "kids don't get it" has been easily disproven. Yet, there is a strong push to get kids back INTO school (so parents can go to work).

Akin to Trump's asking whether they could reduce the infection rate by stopping testing!

That isn't quite so clear, although it seems intuitive.

I've been seeing multiple independent modelling studies which indicate that opening up now won't make as much difference as it did in the past. There are two caveats: - people still behave responsibly - the peak infection/hospitalisation rates are unpleasantly dependent (2:1) on the parameters chosen

"Flare up bum" man and travelling on the tube/train make the first questionable.

He isn't a nutter, but he is despicable - which is worse.

It's amazing the contempt urban types have for people they have probably never met... the people who keep them defended and warm and fed. If my car were broken down in a storm on a lonely road, I'd sure rather that the next vehicle had Mississippi plates than New Jersey.

Low population density is the natural protection from the virus. There are counties in California that have had zero covid deaths so far, so people are not panicked to get vaccinated there. Half the deaths in CA have been in three counties in the south.

But the people driving it are less likely to have been vaccinated. This is a matter of fact, not any kind of moral judgement.

It helps, but it isn't a long term defense. The Spanish flu got right through Australia (and killed my wife's grandfather in his late twenties which didn't help my wife's mother when she was growing up).

Getting vaccinated isn't a panic reaction. Sane people do it before the virus shows up in their area.

That how contagious diseases work.

The US may have vaccinated a lot of people but clearly not enough. The country still has five million active cases, and the new case per day rate is over 35,000 and seems to be going up again.

It's a mini-pandemic among the unvaccinated, which means, in the advanced countries with plenty of vaccine availability, it is of absolutely no concern whatsoever.

That *might* be true if there were no breakthrough cases *and* if those infected didn't "breed" new variants.

Otherwise, the selfishness and ignorance of The Unwashed will spill over to folks who *know* better!

There's nothing "mini" about 5 million active cases. If you want more infectious variants, having a lot of people infected is exactly how you get them.

Some of those variants may evade the existing vaccines to some extent, which makes them a concern for the vaccinated.

Fred Bloggs seems to be aware of the facts, but he's week on their implications.

Believe that if you want but you will be in for a nasty surprise.

Watch very carefully what happens in the UK next week when we totally unlock to see how many people we can infect and how quickly.

Daily exponential growth is presently x1.05 and there is every prospect of it going much higher. The hottest place in the UK has 80% first dose and 66% second dose vaccination but it is a very poor region.

Affluence matters much more for Covid outcome than the simplistic models allow for. This is pretty much now a cull of the poor and vulnerable.